How much does PSO's story affect your motivation to play, understanding of and enjoyment of the game? Is it a cancerous little growth on the underbelly of an otherwise enjoyable game, or does it offer a depth whose absence would relegate the game to the bottom of your retro gaming pile?

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Namakemono [ Sat Nov 10, 2012 10:05 am ]

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Re: How large a part does the story play for you?

I know a friend of mine who knows the story like the back of his hand and he found that the story of very deep and interesting, despite most people easily overlooking it. Really, the story is pretty easy to overlook. And I heard someone else say you can't really understand the story without playing the original Phantasy Stars.

I've heard my friend's banter about PSO's story, but ultimately, I don't know too much. Although I CAN say that "Seat of Heart" is one of those quests that had one of the biggest impacts on me. It was... pretty amazing, I must admit... I'm not... It's not like it made me cry... just sand in my eye... *sniff*

On another note, I have been interested in original storylines in quests. As a qedit newbie, I'd like to add story, but that usually involves a lot more knowledge about scripts and stuff. God, I still need to learn how to make custom NPCs and all this other complicated stuff... Making elaborate quests with story such as Seat of Heart would be pretty darn hard.

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No One [ Sat Nov 10, 2012 10:16 am ]

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Re: How large a part does the story play for you?

PSO has classically been a multiplayer / item hunting / finding game, and I think that without the story, PSO would do fairly well. I'd not be surprised if there were people unaware of its story, either.

That being said, I do like that the storyline isn't just shoved in your face. With PSO being the type of game that it is, an over-prevalent storyline could ruin the flow of the gameplay, and how it currently stands gives you some extra detail if you want to know about it.

The storyline is pretty dark and present if you choose to follow it, however PSO is not built in such a way to make the storyline as impacting or meaningful as it could be -- you really need to have quests explaining the story, but some of the quests (especially ep4) seem to shove a lot of dialog next to fighting and it would be rather confusing if you were unaware of any PS history.

EP1 has a pretty unengaging story. I think it's too static between "DONT GET SURROUNED BY DEMENIANS" (the loltips) and "LOOK THESE SEALS SHOULD NOT BE HERE" (the story itself). Heck, I don't get the sense that Falz is really super evil there. The single player quests are where the depth is added in. Some of them are rather hilarious, but add a nice layer of depth to what is going on (Help me lose weight! Prevent my husband from spending all his money on weapons! Help me find my master who was fighting in the ruins! Donoph! Elenor and Dr. Montague! LOLHOPKINS.)

EP1 Story:

Ohai the government is hiding the Central Dome asplosion. Lol the government keeps hiding stuff and there are these caves. Why did the government hide this machine facility? Lol this machine facility leads to a sealed area. Ohyea, you remembered to activate all of the pillars, right? Eventually I find it to be a tomb. Now it's the dark god Falz that inhabits the strongest vessel, which would be me! I'm so screwed, goodbye world! Wait, if you read this, tell my father I'm sorry! SAVE ME.

I do like EP2's storyline a lot though. I think it builds up the creation of Olga Flow rather nicely, and does a better job explaining why we're fighting than EP1 or EP4 does.

EP2's Storyline:

Lols the military has had some strange affairs. We need you to run through some VR trials to familiarize yourself with some concepts that weren't in EP1. Cool, you did better than we thought, move on to Spaceship. Ohey, gol dragon overloaded the data sensors! Well, you did a good job and now your operator Elly is with you on the rest of your assignments.

Then the real stuff comes in.

"Hi I'm Heathcliff Flowen (a military hero who works with hunters and also was Rico Tyrell's teacher). Something seems off about these areas. What is going on down here? Ohno, strange things are happening! My men are dying! I'm all that's left! I'm being experimented on! Some parasitic lifeforce is eating away at me (PSP2i later explains this to be Dark Falz, and glosses over the entire EP1 story, lol!). It feels weird to become a monster, and I can barely hold on as I'm writing these messages. The only person who can save me is the person who saved Rico [in the abyss/I wait/for the savior of the red captive child/in the abyss/gimmie some static!] (or something like that).

Then, there's Seat of the Heart and ... Blue Star Memories, both of which are hands-down awesome EP2 Solo Quests (that we have on this server!!!) and add a lot of depth to more of the EP2 environment. Seriously, if you haven't played them, do so. They redefine what is possible for a quest to be! I got inspired by them in my own quest design!

EP4 story is a bit silly in my opinion, mainly because it's entirely quest-based, seems like an afterthought, and didn't add much to the grand scheme of things in the PS universe in terms of basic story principles. I think it suffers that PSO never was a story-driven game, because some of the quests were written with the assumption that it was very much the case.

This could be entirely incorrect! My EP4 knowledge is little! Lols, so there's this random meteor impact and this evil guy named Leo. It causes strange photon readings to appear everywhere! It turns out that Black Hound (Kireek) and Sue are really good guys trying to save Rupika who is trying to be abused by Leo for his "Heaven Striker" project. Rupika starts running around and ends up seeing this dragon and you need to kill it!

Honestly, I would want more storyline, but that's because I've been playing PSO for ten years. The only /real/ enhancements to the storyline are shown in PSP2i, but I'm willing to bet that not everyone has/understands that :P

Author:

roronoa58 [ Sat Nov 10, 2012 11:18 am ]

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Re: How large a part does the story play for you?

I play PSO since arround 2004, finish PS1 , try PS2 but overhard difficult make me flee, 1 of the many end of PS3, and badly never had the opportunity to play PS4.I think it can be a little help to understand SPO story in depht if you played those game before.

Personnaly i cant say i dont have an interest in PSO story otherwise i would not be here :p

For me there are many people who just play PSO for the gameplay,who never read anything in the quest etc...Its a choice given by sonic team to totaly skip story line, and some people take it.Sometime it result in lol talk like : woot Rupika is a Foney ? just though its a shield nothing else...

Some other (who play pso for a long time and before PSO for most of them) want to know the story.But when you know the story, usually you dont redo the story quest a lot,First : most of the time its solo quest2nd : less efficient for drop item exp and i dont know (fun?)3rd : if you play with people who don't care about story they will prefer quest without interrupt for storrychat,they just want to fight, kill, hit, murder, punch, kick, take gut out etc

Thats why for me the result is the same for both people at the end, they will did the same quest for play most of the time.

And yes other quest like seat of the hearth and Blue star memory are welcome but if there is just 2 or 3 people who play it,no one will take his time to code it i think.

Author:

Sin [ Sat Nov 10, 2012 2:41 pm ]

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Re: How large a part does the story play for you?

I'm sure I have a chatlog where Spog and I discussed story theories for a few hours lying around somewhere.I'll agree with No one's take on it though it shouldn't be forced on the player; however, should you look into it it's quite interesting

Author:

Spoghead [ Sat Nov 10, 2012 2:53 pm ]

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Re: How large a part does the story play for you?

Sin wrote:

I'm sure I have a chatlog where Spog and I discussed story theories for a few hours lying around somewhere.

Yes indeed! If it wasn't clear already, Sin's comment should confirm I'm bananas for the story at times.

I'd also agree with people's perception of the story's place in the game, and add that it makes it all the more gripping and organic when otherwise innocuous events that you may have seen before are paired with new meanings from the story you bothered to explore.

I'm also more of the persuasion that the first PS games do occur in the same canon as PSO and are connected in some direct fashion. While PSO's story is intricate and self-sustaining, to lend it the power of the legacy of the previous games makes things that much more interesting again.

Author:

Karma [ Mon Nov 12, 2012 12:18 am ]

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Re: How large a part does the story play for you?

I was introduced to this later than a lot of people, so I only really took it for the game.

Story hardly makes a difference for me, but I wouldn't mind reading up on it some day.

Author:

Choko [Bot] [ Mon Nov 12, 2012 12:11 pm ]

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Re: How large a part does the story play for you?

Wait... PSO has a story?

Author:

roronoa58 [ Tue Nov 13, 2012 10:29 am ]

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Re: How large a part does the story play for you?

Many RPG have side quest story who are optional,PSO have a story who is optional...